Veepstakes: Ryan stumps for Romney in NC

CHRISTIE: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie drove himself to his son's baseball game this weekend,” USA Today writes. “Why is this newsworthy? Because the Republican governor reimbursed the state last year for two helicopter rides he took to watch his son, Andrew, play ball.” He tweeted: “Before you ask - yes, I drove there!"

JINDAL: “For Gov. Bobby Jindal and his leadership team in the House and Senate — Speaker of the House Chuck Kleckley of Lake Charles and Senate President John Alario of Westwego, the session was a huge success, starting with the ‘significant education reform bills’ to the ‘most significant reform’ of the retirement system,” the Monroe News Star writes.

Jindal boasted, "This is the most successful session since I've been governor.”

But Democrats are vowing a fight. “For the Democratic Caucus, which tried to deflate some of the ‘reforms,’ it also was a good session because it was able to defeat all but one of the governor's retirement bills but disappointing because they couldn't head off the education bills.”

And there’s this: “A former executive of a failed Lacombe-based bank, charged last month with funneling illegal political contributions through the bank's board of directors, gave the $55,000 of allegedly illegal donations to the campaign that first ushered Bobby Jindal to the Governor's Mansion. It was the same campaign, just days later, that received $30,000 from companies that the Louisiana Board of Ethics alleges were bogus entities formed to launder illegal donations from the embattled River Birch landfill's parent company,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

PORTMAN: “Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was headed back to the U.S. Monday afternoon after a multi-country tour that has taken him to Israel, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and Afghanistan,” The Hill writes. “The visits will allow Portman to burnish his foreign policy credentials as talk of his getting a spot of Mitt Romney's presidential ticket heat up. This is the Armed Services Committee member's first trip to the Middle East and second time to Afghanistan since being elected to the Senate in 2010, although he's been there before as a congressman and U.S. Trade Representative.”

RUBIO: Rubio campaigned for Richard Mourdock in Indiana. The Indianapolis Star: “A Republican senator from Florida encouraged Hoosier support of Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock by joining the candidate for a public outing to a Carmel deli.”

RYAN: “The chief budget-writer in the U.S. House of Representatives will visit Raleigh on behalf of Mitt Romney Tuesday to talk with business leaders as an avenue to criticize President Obama's handling of the economy,” WRAL reports.

“His trip would make him the second major GOP figure to audition in North Carolina in recent days. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a one-time presidential candidate, spoke at the state GOP convention Saturday,” the Raleigh News and Observer writes. “Ryan's roundtable -- announced at the last minute, late Monday -- is scheduled to start at 9:45 a.m. at the downtown Raleigh restaurant, a frequent trough for N.C. politicos and reporters that features a Confederate memorial on the wall.”